Old-time musicians

Master Nieman, an alumnus, is about to demonstrate on stage himself, and Fanning can't help but be fascinated.

But when he thought back to Bishop Mill's previous sentence, he seemed to remember something.

Lee Viadrin... Lee Viadrin... Is this the president's full name?

"Maybe I need to say that I just saw the theme." Sir Viadrin, a member of the inspection team, stood up and made a joke with a faint smile.

A few light and friendly laughs floated out of the audience, including the family members of Basani in the front row. The emergence of such an atmosphere may be difficult to understand at an ordinary funeral, but this great poet is definitely not an ordinary person.

"You are adding to their psychological pressure." Bishop Mill, who retreated to the corner of the altar, smiled and said, "Today is another historic moment. Our great pianist 'Lee' is back on stage."

"Lee Viadrin of the Guidance School, is he the pianist 'Lee'?" The audience was still silent, but many people had begun to get close to each other and communicate in whispers.

After hearing Bishop Mill's words, Fanning finally connected a childhood scene that he still remembered vividly in this world with the tall and burly figure on the stage at this moment.

At the turn of the century in the year 900 of the new calendar, Vincent took his 10-year-old self to listen to a soul-stirring solo concert, the protagonist of which was a pianist named "Li".

He had nearly 20 years of concert experience. Although he was middle-aged at that time, he still had a tall and handsome appearance and a romantic and melancholy stage temperament. In terms of playing style, he pursued a dizzying and suffocating showmanship effect: extremely fast speed, brilliant sound, complex and difficult layers, turbulent octaves, explosive contrast between strong and weak... His tours were sold out, and audiences from all over the world were all fascinated.

Especially the ladies and ladies from prominent families.

Those fanatical female admirers would scream wildly or cry when they applauded during the intervals of his music. Some people frequently fainted due to lack of oxygen on the spot, and some even threw their personal gold and silver ornaments onto the stage when they presented flowers at the curtain call.

At the end of the last century, a more conservative music critic in the "Theolian Cultural Weekly" pointed out with criticism that "ladies, or ladies, gathered around him like ants around a dessert... fighting for his fallen hair, kissing his cigarette butts, and even some ladies drank the remaining hot water in the bathtub of the hotel where he stayed..."

Now, from the mutual confirmation of the memories of the two lives, this pianist is simply a replica of Liszt on the blue planet.

"It seems that the me in this world started to clamor to learn piano formally after the end of that concert... Well, it's not that kind of reason, it's because I was shocked by the music." Fanning recalled secretly.

But at that concert, "Lee" announced his decision to leave the stage without any warning and directly cancelled the next year's schedule. Fanning's only listening experience turned out to be a live witness of the explosive news.

Since then, the legendary pianist has disappeared from the public eye.

Fanning recalled the romantic stories of pianist "Lee" that are still circulating today, and thought of the complicated look on Viadrin's face when he saw Marquise McAdam just now.

This former soprano singer has never been involved in any scandals. Fanning tends to think that although Viadrin is surrounded by celebrities, she may have been in a state of love but not getting it for her junior or senior sister.

On the side of the flowers on the altar is a black "Boethius" nine-foot piano. Viadrin has sat on the piano stool. He raised his head, looked through the piano stand, and stared at the murals high above the eight notes.

I wonder what changes have taken place in the president's skills and style? Fanning and other audiences waited with bated breath.

In fact, with such a deliberate comparison, the characteristics of the past can be vaguely seen from his facial features. But 13 years have passed, from middle age to old age in the sense of ordinary people, the president ran to the office to open a restaurant, and was promoted to a master of enlightenment. His temperament has changed too much. More importantly, the president is bald...

Viadlin ended his contemplation of gazing at the mural, his sight turned to looking straight ahead, and at the same time raised his left hand to the piano keyboard.

The light and fast G major tone stream flows densely from the middle range.

Their local constituent elements are cheerful rondo patterns, but the long breathing lines of each phrase run through the three octave range, rushing to the top first, then falling down, and moving back and forth in this trend.

Viadlin did not step on the pedal, which made every detail of the sound stream clear, but the volume was still very weak, sounding like a clear stream that keeps flowing and meandering.

"It's not difficult to play fast and loud, but it's very difficult to play very fast and softly... In this long sentence that is generally soft, the president also made a relatively crescendo and decrescendo effect. What's more, he didn't even step on the pedal. Although this way of showing off is not aggressive at all, it is easy to make people doubt their own playing level." Fanning thought to himself.

Just from the sound of the two prelude measures played with one hand, he felt the huge gap between his finger function and Viadrin's.

The fast-running background sound stream switched the harmony along the bass of the eight notes. At the same time, Viadrin joined in with his right hand, playing crisp double notes with dotted rhythm in the high pitch, like the splash of water hitting the rocks on the stream.

"It should be a title music. Although it is contrary to my concept, I feel a strong sense of picture." The insightful master Schillings secretly pondered, "... Well, no, this double note is still not a melody, but the shape and color of the splashing water in the stream. In addition to maintaining the high-speed running of the left hand and the crisp double notes of the right hand, he chose to present the melody in the middle layer of the texture, which was played by the thumb of the right hand, with a hint of ignorance and simplicity, as if it was a creature like a fish in the water?"

"The control of the sound level of his fingers is simply terrible!" Everyone present was able to see the doorway.

A picture of a rushing stream, splashing water hitting rocks, and fish swimming slowly unfolded from Viadrin's hands. After the end of the presentation theme, the music came to the secondary theme similar to the style of the hymn.

The hymn style on the piano mainly uses a rhythmic pattern with roughly uniform melody and harmony to imitate the sound effects of the solemn chanting version in the Middle Ages, and Viadrin's is no exception.

But he rarely composed a chord with more than ten notes overlapping, which spanned most of the keyboard. Naturally, he could not press both hands at the same time. He chose to play each group of chords into waves by alternating his left and right hands four times.

So the audience saw such a stunning scene: before each melody sounded, Viadrin's hands would alternately "wipe" on the keyboard, and then under the afterimage, more than ten keys accurately "sank" and finally fell on the highest melody.

However, his strength was still maintained at a comfortable moderate level, and the secondary hymn theme composed of melody sounds was still very singing, creating a combination of movement and stillness that was obviously fast in note speed but soft and elegant in hearing.

This secondary theme... the audience immediately recognized it after listening to a few bars.

It did come from a medieval hymn melody deformation, called: "St. Janin of Pontua Preaching to the Fishes". It depicts a religious story of Saint Janingo, the first Archbishop of the Holy Sun Church: Pontua is a place name. The Archbishop stood by the stream here for a long time and patiently preached to the fish, persuading them to change their greedy and gluttonous nature. The hymn was the content of the sermon. The fish listened to the sermon happily, and then continued to chase after things to fill their stomachs.

The audience suddenly realized that it was no wonder that Sir Viadrin stared at the top of the church for a long time before playing. The place he was looking at was a mural created with "Saint Janingo of Pontua Preaching to the Fishes" as the material!

The development section starts with the left-hand sound stream of the minor key version. It is shorter in duration, but contains a four-layer structure with contrasting speed and tonality. Here, Viadrin made the audience feel the charm of the legendary pianist's showmanship again.

Sometimes he seemed depressed, but once he was excited, brilliant chords like volcanic eruptions, thundercloud-like tremolos and lightning-fast cadenzas poured out, and the whole church fell into a buzzing tremor. Sometimes he hit a strong sound that seemed to scrap the strings, and then a hazy and gentle melody floated in an instant, making people indulge in it, as if intoxicated.

A perfect sonata-style creation ended after a concise and concise summary of the recapitulation.

First, the picture of the stream and fish on the mural was depicted, and today's tone series was initially displayed. Then the melody of the hymn "Preaching to the Fish" was perfectly combined with the harmony of the tone series material, and the fiery passion with a strong personal style broke out in the most dramatic development of the music. Viadrin's various ingenuity and brilliant skills perfectly realized the resonance of music, art, religion and literature, and were undoubtedly a model of the spirit of romanticism.

And as the first person to go up to show, Viadrin had the least time to conceive.

Everyone not only saw the legendary pianist again, but also was shocked by his showmanship and experienced the endless philosophy brought by the artist's life experience.

When the warm but not exaggerated applause ended, Maestro Niemann stood up from the first row of the audience.

Unexpectedly, he did not go to the piano on the altar, but walked around to the stairwell in the side corridor under everyone's gaze, and slowly stepped up the steps leading to the second floor and higher, with two clergy assistants following closely behind.

"Upstairs? He wants to play the organ?"

"Maestro Niemann actually chose to use the organ to show his creation?" Everyone looked at each other in surprise.

Watching Niemann sitting down on the organ performance platform surrounded by wooden carvings, Fanning's eyes lit up. As a lover of Bach's music, the organ was something he longed for but had no conditions to touch in his previous life.

The pedals stepped on the brilliant column chord background, and a prelude with a gorgeous chromatic style was played alternately by Niemann's hands.

"What a free rhythm, seemingly careless, but it implies a certain emotional law. He should have referred to the Toccata style. Of course, his vocabulary is romantic." Fanning began to figure out the creative ideas of Master Niemann.

In the previous life, "Toccata" came from Italian, and the root word here happened to be Hoffman's "touch". It is a keyboard instrument of free improvisation, usually opening with a series of broken chords and fast scale arpeggios.

"It's G major, but what is the relationship between this prelude and the development of eight notes? It seems that there is no trace of deformation."

"Is it a variation? The melody variation is definitely not, but the harmonic variation is not like it either?"

"What is the intention of Master Niemann?" Although it sounds beautiful and moving, and it is the work of a master at first sight, some audiences are also puzzled by Master Niemann's opening layout.

Even the four masters in the front row of the audience seats are a little confused, and only Masters Sweelinck and Schillings showed thoughtful expressions.

"No, no... This doesn't sound like a solo." Fanning gradually discovered some clues, "It's not a solo, there must be something soon after."

Sure enough, when the music reached the eighth bar, the gorgeous and complex sound pattern gradually dissipated, leaving only the rhythmic background like an undercurrent.

Master Niemann sang a baritone melody that was elegant and clear, as bright and gorgeous as jade:

"If I had brilliant silk,

woven with golden and silver light;

night, day, dawn and dusk,

blue, gray and dark silk;

I would spread them at your feet,

but I am penniless and can only dream.

I have spread them at your feet,

be gentle, because you are treading on my dream."

Master Niemann sang in pure ancient Hoffmannian, and what surprised everyone was not only that he adapted Bassani's mystical poems into art songs, but also that his voice had amazing penetration.

With proper coordination, the volume of a bel canto solo can compete with that of a symphony orchestra, but standing in a church, facing the "king of instruments" organ with a torrent of volume, it might be a bit difficult, and only a choir can coordinate with it.

But Master Niemann played and sang directly on the organ. Not only was his voice not covered, but he also improvised four lines of music in his mind at the same time (organ hands + pedals + vocals).

"A lot of unexpected modulations, semitone lines, delayed resolutions, a lot of dissonant intervals... This harmony can be said to be very bold, and it is very consistent with the mystical temperament of poetry." Fanning stared at the master's back in the sky without blinking, "Huh!? What? What kind of strange tonality layout is this?"

The unexpected but reasonable two-bar interlude moved the tonality down by a semitone without a trace, from the original G major with only one sharp to the F major with six sharps.

"Oh, inspiration comes in the day and at night,

The heart of pursuit knows where it goes;

Someone has seen in the red of wine,

The incorruptible rose."

It is another poem by Bassani. Niemann's singing mood has a hint of wandering and ambiguity. The tonality continues to move down a whole tone to the parallel e minor of G major. Accompanied by the counterpoint lines of the low voice and the major second interval played alternately by both hands on the upper and lower keyboards, the color has changed more vividly.

"It lazily sprinkled on him,

Faded petals and the sweetness of desire;

When the time and the world are gradually fading,

In the twilight of dew and fire."

At this time, including Fanning, some people gradually understood Niemann's creative ideas: tonality!

The master wanted to use the eight-note tonic as the tonality layout, and adapted some of Bassani's mystical poems into art songs on the spot, thus obtaining an organ vocal work with the nature of a suite in each part and the integrity of a single movement.

Sure enough, next, Master Niemann continued to change the key, from E minor to D minor, and then from B minor to C major. He used three poems in total, and finally came to the dominant D major.

This is not something that can be achieved by simple performance skills. His melody is not simply "matching the lyrics". Every delicate emotional change in the poem, the fluctuation of emotions and light and shadow in the original text, are all exquisitely reflected in the ups and downs of the melody.

In such a short time, finding suitable poems as lyrics, composing melodies, placing them in a unified musical logic, and reflecting the inherent connection between harmony, rhythm, texture and mystical thought, this requirement for literary literacy alone makes the waiting famous artists feel afraid.

The last poem by Bassani, the tonality comes to the main tone of the eighth note, returning to the original G major of the music, but the colors shown by the music and the emotions conveyed have a vague sense of sublimation.

"In the shade of the old tree broken by the wind,

while sitting quietly on the ancient bluestone,

because of the sudden beating of the pulse,

I realized that the glow is a living existence,

and humans are lifeless phantoms."

At the end, the sound effects returned to tranquility, and the low G sound was repeated. The beams of light projected from the church vault, which had become dim at some point, seemed to open their eyes happily, powerfully penetrated the gloomy haze of various objects, and enveloped the listeners generously and warmly.

"I realized that the glow is a living existence,

and humans are lifeless phantoms."

When the last active melody of Niemann's right hand stopped at the B note, Fanning felt that the heat around him surged at that moment and was about to be ignited. The beauty created by music and poetry, integrated with a lot of mystical revelations, brought him extreme pleasure and shock.

Many details that were difficult to understand when studying secret knowledge suddenly became clear at this time. Some ethereal smells, colors and emotions in dreams also became clear from being difficult to describe.

For a moment, I couldn't tell whether this strange feeling came from Master Niemann or from the flowers rising from the body of the poet Basani.

The church was silent, with only the sound of Master Niemann stepping down the steps echoing.

"What Mr. Pogolic said is very correct. 'Crescent Moon' is an extremely important existence no matter in any historical era. A temporary work can cause such a strong inspiration shock. The same people have different levels of The value and significance to us are simply different." He Meng in front let out a sigh of relief.

Fan Ning's limbs felt hot, his thoughts were flooding, and his heart was beating slowly and powerfully.

After listening to Viadlin and then Master Niemann, he finally understood the horror of these "great musicians" and "great music masters". At present, if he relied solely on his own cultivation, he could only compete with those "famous music masters". "Musicians" are just competing for one or two.

Any show off skills? Although there are many difficult passages in the accompaniment, Fan Ning feels that Niemann never shows off his skills for the sake of showing off his skills. None of the notes he presents are superfluous, and he will never thicken the octave, superimpose double tones, or create empty sounds. Adding to the brilliance, the direction of each voice has been carefully designed - perhaps this is just an unintentional expression of his style.

Even if you are full of inspiration, even if you have the blessing of countless classical music memories from past lives, you will still lack confidence in front of these real masters. This is the same as putting your current self in your past life to face Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert.

Including Bishop Mill and other members of the inspection team, no one commented or expressed their opinions on the music of Viadlin and Niemann, because there was no need to do so.

The demonstrations of these two people were simply a real shock. Under their influence, the artists who came up to the sacrament rostrum next had rich experience on the stage, but at this moment they were inevitably restrained to varying degrees.

The first person to take the stage was Dutoit, who was about to perform a piano concerto with the National Conservatory of Music in Tioleon. His state was obviously the most affected, and he hurriedly left the stage after playing a romantic-style improvisation.

"As expected of a famous pianist, this improvisation, if the details are carefully polished in its heyday, should be at least four or five times as good as Chopin's Fantasy Impromptu... It's a pity that in this order and in this state..."

Fan Ning even wondered whether this arrangement was specially designed by the inspection team to test the ability of this group of artists to withstand stress.

…

The fourth is Adonis, chief conductor of the Royal Academy of Music.

"It's already No. 4, and his condition should have recovered a lot. This variation can be considered original, and can even be called 'logical'. But since it has chosen a Romantic vocabulary work, there are presidents and Nieman The master demonstrates it first and does not discuss the relevance of sister arts or mysticism. After all, it is still a little bit less interesting.”

Without comparison, there is no gap. Fan Ning felt that there was a hundred Adonis difference between the level of everyone's performance in the impromptu test at the University of St. Lenia last year and the level of Master Niemann's performance today.

Especially since my finger functions are average, fortunately my next plan is not romantic.

Everyone's performances were generally long, with several people creating multi-movement works that lasted twenty to thirty minutes. As their performance gradually improved, the inspection team frequently showed expressions of satisfaction.

After all, the talents of these artists who have achieved the current achievements are by no means ordinary. Without comparing them with Master Niemann, they are all amazing works.

The music they improvise based on a given theme is something that other composition professionals cannot write for months using written methods.

The display of ten people took about two and a half hours. When the last person stepped down from the altar, Marquis MacAdam, who had been observing silently throughout the whole process, finally spoke loudly.

"Your Excellency Bishop Mir, and everyone on the inspection team, I have a proposal here."